Chapter 13: The Company Names Its Founder

On Wednesday afternoon, three cardboard boxes sit in the MercerDx public lobby with Adrian's name on them in black marker.

Facilities packed his office this morning.

He is not allowed upstairs to do it himself.

I come down from the lab because the guard calls Petra, and Petra calls me.

"He wants to inspect the boxes," she says in the elevator.

"In the lobby. At lunch. With an audience."

"Of course he does."

The lobby is full of staff coming back with sandwiches and coffee.

Nobody hurries past.

Adrian stands over the boxes in his charcoal coat, lifting things out one at a time.

A framed magazine cover with his face on it.

A crystal paperweight from an investor dinner.

A photograph of the two of us at the first lab opening, my hand on a centrifuge, his hand on my back.

He holds that one up so the room can see it.

"Eight years," he says to nobody in particular.

"And this is what she sends down in a box."

"Facilities sent it," Petra says.

"Dr. Mercer was busy saving a reagent lot."

A few people laugh into their coffee.

Adrian sets the photograph back in the box face down.

Then he sees me and smiles the smile he gives reporters.

"Look at her," he tells the lobby.

"Thirty-eight. No children. Married to a machine. She would have left this company to a centrifuge if I hadn't been there."

The lobby goes quiet in a different way.

A young analyst stops with her sandwich halfway to her mouth.

The receptionist looks at me.

I look at Adrian.

"A centrifuge would have waited for the dental records," I say.

The revolving door turns.

Camille comes through it with snow in her hair and a document folder clutched to her chest.

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